I don’t know who the woman was, but I remember her words exactly. She’d signed up for a bird walk as part of the Galle Literary Festival, a celebration held every year in the fort town on Sri Lanka’s south coast. For most of our walk she’d seemed vaguely baffled. But then she’d looked through borrowed binoculars at the paddy-field marshes across the road. There, softened by mist and distance, was an extraordinary number of birds: pond herons, black-tailed godwits, greenshanks, wood sandpipers, pheasant-tailed jacanas resembling animate china ornaments and little green bee-eaters that glowed like neon bulbs. Flocks of whiskered terns rose and fell like slow breaths in the dusk air.
我不认识那位女士，但她的话我记得非常清楚。她报名参加了加勒文学节(Galle Literary Festival)的一次观鸟徒步活动，这个庆典每年都会在斯里兰卡(Sri Lanka)南海岸的要塞小镇加勒举行。大部分时间里，她似乎都显得有些困惑。但后来，她借来一副望远镜，看向马路对面的稻田沼泽。雾气和距离让那里的景色变得柔和，映入眼帘的是数量惊人的鸟类：池鹭、黑尾塍鹬、青脚鹬、林鹬、像会动的瓷器摆件一样的雉尾水雉，以及像霓虹灯泡一样闪亮的小绿蜂虎。成群的须燕鸥在黄昏的空气中起伏，就像缓慢的呼吸。